Chatti

Learn more about Chatti

The Chatti (also Catti) were an ancient Germanic tribe settled in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of the Weser river and in the valleys and mountains of the Eder, Fulda and Werra river regions, a district approximately corresponding to Hesse-Cassel, though probably somewhat more extensive. According to Tacitus (Histories iv. under 70 [1]), among them were the Batavians, until an internal quarrel drove them out, to take up new lands at the mouth of the Rhine.

The Chatti successfully resisted incorporation into the Roman Empire, joining the Cheruscan war leader Arminius' coalition of tribes that annihilated Varus' legions in 9 in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. Germanicus later, in 15, raided their lands in revenge, but Rome eventually responded to the Chatti's belligerent defense of their independence by building the limes border fortifications along the southern boundary of their lands in central Hesse during the early years of the 1st century. The remnants of a very large fortified retreat have been found on a hill near the village of Metze (Latin: Mattium) in the core lands of the Chatti south of Kassel.

According to Tacitus in his book Germania (chapter 30), they were disciplined warriors famed for their infantry, who (unusual for Germanic tribes) used trenching tools and carried provisions when at war. Their neighbours to the north were the Usipi and Tencteri.

In 723, the Anglo-Saxon missionary Winfrid -- subsequently called St. Boniface, Apostle of the Germans -- proselytizing among the Chatti, felled their sacred tree, Thor's Oak, near Fritzlar, as part of his efforts to compel the conversion of the Chatti and the other northern German tribes to Christianity.